Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

slate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 309 posts

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#131

Post by kube-system »

petee wrote: post #61
jpollock wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can compare fatality rates from fires between countries with dual exits and those without: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_building_or_structure_... We can also see if mass casualty fires in buildings stopped happening after the regulation change. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Theatre_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi... https://www.nytimes.com/1860/02/03/archives/cal…

My counter argument would be regulations for new buildings take a long time to be widely applied, I think you would need to judge every single fire on a case by case basis, not region or by period.

And there are a ton of other variables. Construction materials, fire response, suppression and alarm systems, the purpose of the building, etc.

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#132

Post by nerdponx »

rcthompson wrote: post #126

I live in an apartment with 2 staircases, an elevator, and a fire escape. Several months ago, there was a fire in a first floor apartment that blocked me from using ALL of them, via either unbreathable smoke or flames. I ended up just hiding in my room until the fire department dealt with it. I'm not sure whether this argues for more staircases or fewer. (In hindsight I did have other options, but this was my first f…

For the benefit of other people who haven't been in a serious building fire: what were your other options?

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#133

Post by [deleted] »

CheezeIt wrote: post #66
Gigablah wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People pay more for units all the time for various reasons - location, orientation, superstition, etc. I’m sure they’ll add “not suffocating to death during a fire” to the list.

I wouldn’t want to pay 33% more for that extra increment of safety. I drive a car, after all.

[deleted]

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#134

Post by kube-system »

CheezeIt wrote: post #66
Gigablah wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People pay more for units all the time for various reasons - location, orientation, superstition, etc. I’m sure they’ll add “not suffocating to death during a fire” to the list.

I wouldn’t want to pay 33% more for that extra increment of safety. I drive a car, after all.

The premium that you pay extra for the safety equipment in your car is likely more than 33%.

We would have many new cars for 4-digit prices if not for the large number of safety systems required on cars.

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#135

Post by bobthepanda »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #67
emodendroket wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but you could say that about any fire where a bunch of people died. There are always "bigger problems" or else there wouldn't be a fire.

The point is, since it was deliberate, the person could almost as easily blocked both stairs. It's not comparable to an accidental fire that potentially impress a single staircase

That also happens, or effectively happens.

Part of modern US stairwell regulation also learned from 9/11, where they found out it wasn't a great idea to have all the required stairwells very close to each other either.

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#136

Post by ghotli »

jcims wrote: post #39

I live in a three bedroom ranch-style home and designed the floorplan myself. Every room save for my bathroom and my office has two egress routes and they all have windows. I’m sure a statistical analysis could be constructed to justify the decision to eliminate two stairwells. I wouldn’t be interested in living there.

Hey what tool did you use to design the floorplan? Pen and paper?

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#137

Post by bobthepanda »

roywiggins wrote: post #31
syshum wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, every fire code I know how requires a minimum of 2 escape route for occupancy

You can satisfy that with a fire escape in a lot of cases, I would have thought?

In practice, usually fire escapes are more harm than help. A fair amount of disasters happened where in the event of an actual fire, the fire escape had been poorly maintained and became overloaded so that they fell to the ground during the evacuation.

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#138

Post by lazide »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #67
emodendroket wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but you could say that about any fire where a bunch of people died. There are always "bigger problems" or else there wouldn't be a fire.

The point is, since it was deliberate, the person could almost as easily blocked both stairs. It's not comparable to an accidental fire that potentially impress a single staircase

2 stairways are much harder to block than one, especially if they are at opposite ends of the structure. One person will struggle to keep them blocked.

That’s a whole lot better than 1 stairwell!

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#139

Post by lazide »

dapids wrote: post #118
emodendroket wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that they could have done this just as easily. One person can only guard one way.

Seriously? We are talking about fire here. Set it and forget it, doesn't require constant attention ...

It does in most places - concrete stairwells (typical) don’t exactly love fire. Sheetrock similar.

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#140

Post by lazide »

landemva wrote: post #127
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of regulations are designed to make new construction as expensive as possible and limit usable floor space as much as possible. No one should be surprised that fire safety laws are going to the extreme for safety at a large cost to floor space.

Municipalities in USA are adopting code for residential new construction to require sprinklers. Big cost that most people won't do anything to stop it because it is only for really big houses (for now). In fifteen years people will wonder why new housing is so expensive and every size house has sprinklers which the homeowner must hire someone to maintain. And pay for sprinkler inspection report prior to resale. On a…

Well for one, they have been required equipment for years - tire pressure sensors and backup cameras in general. So you’d need to go quite far back.

And the still working quite far back vehicles are pretty valuable because they have stood the test of time and don’t have all the buzzword crap, so folks don’t want to part with them.

The old cheap ones also got fed into a grinder (essentially) for cash for clunkers.

Post reply on HN